American Grace

American Grace

Article excerpt

[239 187 191 ]Will religion push us closer - or pull us apart?

In his bestselling "Bowling Alone," Harvard professor Robert
Putnam explored social isolation in the United States. Putnam's new
book (with coauthor David Campbell), American Grace: How Religion
Divides and Unites Us, is a treasure-trove of data about religious
practice in the US, most of it derived from the massive Faith
Matters surveys that Putnam himself helped organize.

Over the past 50 years, the authors say, the US has seen an
increasing political polarization of the religious and the
nonreligious, particularly when it comes to abortion and
homosexuality: "Sixty-five percent of the least religious Americans
believe in a woman's unfettered right to choose when it comes to
abortion, a position held by only thirteen percent of the most
religious ... [and] [n]early nine out of ten highly religious people
say that homosexual activity is always wrong, in contrast with two
out of ten secular Americans."

The authors trace these strong political divisions to two major
historical moments, first a conservative/religious backlash to the
counterculture of the 1960s and, second, an antireligious/secular
backlash to the growing political involvement of religion in the
1980s. "Liberal sexual morality [of the 1960s] provoked some
Americans to assert conservative religious beliefs and
affiliations," the authors explain, "and then conservative sexual
morality [in the 1980s] provoked other Americans to assert secular
beliefs and affiliations." As highly political religious groups like
the Moral Majority gained electoral influence, more Americans
(especially younger ones) "came to view religion ... as judgmental,
homophobic, hypocritical, and too political."

There actually is a "God gap" in present-day American politics,
the authors agree: "The Republicans have forged a coalition of the
religious ... [and] issues like abortion and same-sex marriage have
brought this religious-political coalition together." But things may
be changing. They point to newer trends that show a greater
acceptance of diversity. …